By Zachary Shields
Subject: Vincent 14700
Memory Log: 3.16.4027 CE
“Warning. First perimeter wall breached.”
I process this information in five nanoseconds. With only three walls between us and the enemy—and the weapons they stole from us—they will reach us in less than five minutes. I can tell from the despairing emotes on my two associates’ displays that they have already figured this out.
Something explodes nearby, and a shudder travels through the entire lab. They must have reached the second wall, and it will not take many blasts like that to breach it. Julia sinks into a chair, resigned to her fate. But Felix glares at me, his despair giving way to anger.
“This is your fault, Vincent.” His sneer crackles through his damaged voice box.
“Felix, please.” Julia does not even look up.
“What?” My former laboratory partner turns his anger toward her. “It’s the truth!”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. Do you want to spend our last moments arguing?”
Felix’s carbon fiber limbs cross over his torso. “And the alternative is what, exactly? Welcome our impending extinction with a whimper?”
Julia does not answer. He is right, of course—we have not heard from the hive mind in five months. We are the last three of our kind. Soon there will be none of us left. Project Andras was not supposed to end like this.
There is another explosion, louder this time. Both Felix and I nearly lose our footing.
“Warning. Second perimeter wall breached.” The warning sounds like a formal accusation. At any moment now, the monsters I helped create will break through the door and end our miserable existence.
Julia looks up at me. “How many of them do you suppose there are now?”
“Ten million? Twenty? Fifty?” I shrug. “I cannot say exactly. Their capacity for reproduction is remarkable.”
Felix throws up his hands. “Whatever made you think cloning them was a promising idea? Did it never occur to you that the Higher Powers allowed them to die for a reason?”
I shake my head again. “We could have learned so much from them. After all, they were the apex species of this planet for thousands of years…”
“And it appears they will inherit the Earth again, thanks to you.” Felix kicks a chair across the room. “You should be so proud.”
“Warning. Intruders approaching third perimeter wall.”
We raise our weapons one last time, ready for one last fight. Nanoseconds pass, then milliseconds, and seconds—an eternity.
Then the walls explode.
The ceiling falls around us even as the blast throws us across the room. My lower limbs shatter as they slam feet-first into concrete and rebar. Lasers scream and shots roar. My vision glitches.
When it clears, I am in hell.
The entire room is in flames. Felix’s face is only three meters from mine, severed from his exoskeleton. No sign of Julia anywhere.
But I can see him.
I have seen his kind before, from behind the safety of plexiglass walls. But here, in person, he is terrifying to behold. Tall, muscle-bound flesh, with a steely glint in cold, emotionless eyes. The gaze of a predator, regarding its prey. Liquid glistens on his face, a face red from both exertion and anger. His finger twitches on the trigger of a laser rifle.
“Good work, soldier,” a disembodied voice says. “Finish it off.”
He looks at me, and I look at him, pleading.
“Please… mercy,” I croak, my voice box damaged. “I… made you. I… created… you.”
He does not hesitate but raises his rifle to his shoulder. “No more Digitals.”
He fires…
End of Memory Log.
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